


all little legs and high-pitched squeals of laughter

by allmadeofstardust



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Aziraphale doesn't understand why, Character Study, Children, Crowley's good with kids, Gen, Inspired by Fanart, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-21 09:03:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21072341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allmadeofstardust/pseuds/allmadeofstardust
Summary: A demon, playing with human children.Now there was a concept Aziraphale had never thought of before.





	all little legs and high-pitched squeals of laughter

**Author's Note:**

> directly inspired by aiwa-sensei's fanart on Tumblr - https://aiwa-sensei.tumblr.com/post/186915314420/anthony-being-naturally-good-with-kids-is-so-soft
> 
> sooooo i don't really go here, like, at all, in that i watched the show once, never read the book, and i follow a bunch of Good Omens blogs on Tumblr.
> 
> but i saw this fanart and i just immediately went "I GOTTA write this"
> 
> so here, enjoy my nonsense.

Crowley was good with kids.

Aziraphale had been aware of this since the beginning of time, when Adam and Eve inevitably had their first baby. They had both watched from the sidelines, not intervening this time (that would come later), but Aziraphale could see it in Crowley’s eyes. A soft spot, amidst everything else that Aziraphale was still trying to figure out.

They didn’t really see each other much between their short run-ins, but when they did encounter each other, they made sure to take some time to wander around, take in the humans, enjoy the world. And in doing so, Aziraphale saw it in the corner of his eye.

It began a few hundred years after the garden, when mankind had had a chance to grow a little. Then, humans were still so frail, so tiny in their child forms, and yet their parents let them run around as if they could take care of themselves on their own. He would never intervene, that wasn’t his jurisdiction, but the Almighty wasn’t stopping Crowley. For he slithered his way into the fields where the children ran, and played with them. He  _ played _ with them. This wasn’t something Aziraphale knew was possible to do - he had granted power, sure, he had been a guide. But this wasn’t a monumental feat, a miracle, divine intervention. This was simply...interaction. Revealing yourself to humans and  _ playing _ with their kin. With their offspring, in their tiny bodies, all little legs and high-pitched squeals of laughter.

One of them tripped on a rock and fell hard, splayed against the ground. The other children stopped and watched curiously as the child began to sob and scream. The adults were over by a river, far away, and the child, though unhurt (Aziraphale could sense that at least), was left alone, in sorrow. It wasn’t his jurisdiction, is what Aziraphale told himself. Maybe the Almighty’s plan involved a small child, alone.

Only Crowley didn’t seem to care about what the Almighty had to say. So he knelt next to the child and swept him up in his arms - a  _ demon _ comforting a  _ human _ . The child was quickly pacified, and Crowley let them run off with their brethren. He turned, then, and caught a glimpse of Aziraphale staring at him. Crowley immediately ducked his head and backed away in shame, eventually folding out of Aziraphale’s sight.

Aziraphale would have passed the whole thing off as a fluke, if it weren’t for Crowley approaching him years later, asking after the fate of the humans the Almighty had deemed less suitable.

“Not the kids,” he said, outraged. “You can’t kill kids!”

Aziraphale could only nod. Crowley ranted, and then, upon finding he could not single handedly change what God herself intended, he sought out said condemned kids. He beckoned them closer and began telling stories. Aziraphale thought he heard tales of a unicorn, amongst other wonderful things. He thought, briefly, if something  _ should _ be done.

But he stood dutifully by while the world flooded.

He saw Crowley again, off and on after that, but there weren’t any kids. Aziraphale wondered if he had gotten bitter, until cometh the time of Shakespeare and suddenly Crowley was babysitting -  _ babysitting -  _ the children of the theater attendees. While Aziraphale enjoyed a nice play of the third version of  _ Hamlet _ , Crowley was outside teaching unhappy children how to play with a hoop and a stick.

He thought he heard multiple crashes outside. Possibly a scream that was distinctly  _ not _ a child’s.

It got worse. Revolution was happening, and children were being abandoned, orphaned in the street. Did that deter Crowley? No, not in the slightest. Instead, he displayed his demonic traits that Aziraphale had forgotten he had by now, and encouraged the little rascals to rebel, to steal. It was strictly not good parenting, Aziraphale thought, as he turned a corner and was dragged away into the prisons, watching Crowley scamper off carrying the children’s freshly thefted goods.

It was as if Crowley  _ wanted _ trouble.

Who was he kidding? Of course he did.

He saw it with the children stuffed into itchy costumes going to church. Crowley would play with them while they waited outside, him daring to get near to some holy ground for the sake of  _ kids _ . He would tip newspaper boys heavily, then encourage them to take the day off and be themselves.

If a demon could love, Aziraphale could swear that Crowley loved the kids he knew.

Aziraphale had seen humans do horrible things. Nothing quite topped this war. And for once, both of them found their literal saving grace in children. They had both centered themselves on the orphanage, full of its kids trying their damndest to smile in a world full of peril and misery.

Aziraphale supposed they were both preoccupied when the bombs fell. Crowley could only save them once.

When the found the ruins, the blackened out shards of glass and burning stone, Aziraphale didn’t quite know what to feel. There was grief, somewhere, and though it felt alien in his chest, it was there all the same.

For Crowley, it was different. Crowley fell to his knees, shaking hands finding a partially-burned child’s doll. Aziraphale wasn’t close enough to hear much, but his body was shaking. Could a demon cry, over something so infinitesimal?

Out of courtesy (and because he couldn’t bear to see it), Aziraphale turned away.

It was a while before either of them could get close to a child again. Sure, sixty years is nothing in their lifetimes. But to both of them, it felt like an eternity, weighed down by the knowledge that it could all go up in smoke again. That it was all so fragile.

Aziraphale supposed that was why they both decided that the world couldn’t end. Because they had seen it before, and in their hearts they knew the humans didn’t deserve it.

The children didn’t deserve it.

Crowley became a nanny (again). Aziraphale, a gardner. And for a few short blissful years, they had someone to care for - a child almost of their own (his parents certainly didn’t do much for him, so they had to compensate).

The reveal that he was the wrong child was frantic and messy, because the end of the world was at stake, and they didn’t have a chance to properly say goodbye.

In the flurry, they seemed to have adopted the AntiChrist.

Afterwards, when everything was righted, the world saved, and the visits established for both children (because they were certainly not going to leave behind the one they raised), Aziraphale wondered when “he” had become “they”. When his observations on Crowley’s habits had become practice for himself.

He asked Crowley, later, after a bit too much fine wine, why he was so enamoured.

“For a demon, you certainly did seem to have a sweet spot with children.”

Crowley pondered for a moment.

“They ask too many questions, don’t they?” he mused. “I suppose I could relate.”

Aziraphale raised his glass and cheered to that sentiment.

After all, he had learned it too.


End file.
